Method of correlating bid price to intrinsic value in a survey platform

ABSTRACT

An online survey platform and process for correlating the bid price offered by a supplier for the completion of an out-of-network survey hosted on the survey platform to one or more intrinsic value indicators of the survey. If the supplier&#39;s bid price is less than or equal to the survey budget price set by the buyer, then the routing platform of the present invention will route the supplier&#39;s respondent(s) to the survey.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.61/810,791, filed Apr. 11, 2013, which is hereby incorporated byreference.

BACKGROUND

Traditionally, market research firms needing surveys obtain price bidsfrom suppliers of survey panels. Survey panels are a collection ofpotential survey participants (i.e., “respondents”) available tocomplete online surveys. The supplier may quote a price per completedsurvey, e.g., $15 per complete. A survey requiring 5,000 completedsurveys would therefore cost $75,000. The nature of each survey may betaken into consideration in determining the price a supplier charges amarket research firm (or other survey buyer) to conduct a survey. Forexample, it is implicitly difficult to find survey respondents who own aFerrari than survey respondents who own a Honda. Therefore, a supplierwould charge a higher price for a survey requiring the surveyrespondents to be Ferrari owners than for a survey requiring the surveyrespondents to be Honda owners.

Online surveys may include demographic questions designed to determinewhether the respondent meets predefined demographic criteria (e.g., age,gender, ethnicity, and/or income), targeted questions designed todetermine whether the respondent meets predefined familiarity and/orutilization criteria for a certain product or service category (e.g.,respondents who use a particular product, such as a beverage, at leastthree times per week), and substantive questions designed to gatherobjective data points for statistical and other analysis. Onlyrespondents who meet the predefined criteria for the demographicquestions and the targeted questions are prompted to respond to thesubstantive questions of the online survey. Respondents who do not meetthe predefined criteria for any demographic or targeted question areterminated from that particular online survey (i.e., do not qualify forthe survey). Also, a respondent may not qualify for an online surveybecause the respondent enters information indicating that he/she is in acategory that is full. For example, surveys may seek a predefinedmixture of respondents, such as 50% male and 50% female, and apredefined total number of 200 respondents. In this example, if 100females have already responded to the survey, the next female respondentwill not qualify for the survey.

Incidence and conversion are two measurements of the intrinsic value ofa particular survey. In other words, these measurements provide a basisfor a supplier to set a price for a particular survey. Incidence is thepercentage of the number of completed surveys divided by the number ofrespondents passing all demographic questions. A higher incidence valueindicates a lower value of the survey (i.e., it is easier to findrespondents for the survey and the survey price is lower). Conversion isthe percentage of the number of completed surveys divided by the numberof respondents passing all demographic and targeted questions.Similarly, a higher conversion value indicates a lower value of thesurvey. Because there is no standard definition of incidence orconversion, these measurements may be defined differently by differentindividuals. Nevertheless, a higher conversion or incidence valueindicates a lower value of the survey.

Another indication of the intrinsic value of a particular survey is thelength of interview (LOI). The longer it takes a respondent to completea survey (i.e., longer LOI), the more difficult it is to findrespondents. For two surveys with the same incidence rates, a surveywith a higher LOI will be more expensive than a survey with a lower LOI.

Because multiple suppliers oftentimes must be engaged to meet thedemographic requirements of a survey, intermediate companies calledrouters may be utilized to automate aspects of managing the multiplesuppliers. Routers utilize software to route respondents to an inventoryof surveys. The router module of the survey management system has atwo-fold responsibility. First, it is responsible for routing therespondents to appropriate surveys. Second, the router must view thesurvey pool holistically and affirm that the surveys collectively have ahigh chance of completion. For the latter responsibility, the router hasto employ a combination of the contradictory aspects of randomizationand prioritization to disperse respondents efficiently. Intelligentdispersion of respondents is one of the core features of a router. Thus,when a respondent fails to meet demographic criteria or familiarity/usecriteria for a given online survey, the router matches the respondent'sinformation against other online surveys in the pool and prompts therespondent with more questions to determine whether the respondent meetsthe demographic and familiarity/use criteria for a second online survey.If the respondent qualifies, he/she is prompted to respond to thesubstantive questions of the second online survey. Otherwise, the routercontinues to prompt the respondent with more questions for differentonline surveys in the pool.

FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional router platform capable of hosting aplurality of surveys on behalf of a plurality of buyers (e.g., marketresearch companies). The surveys can be accessed by a supplier's panelof respondents. In the example depicted in FIG. 1, the router platformis hosting Surveys S1, S2, S3, S4, and S5 for Buyers B1, B2, B3, B4, andB5, respectively. The router platform is also hosting Surveys S6, S7,S8, and S9 for Buyers B6, B7, B8, and B9, respectively. The supplier ofPanel A has agreed with each of the Buyers B1-B5 to a survey price(e.g., $15/completed survey) for each of the Surveys S1-S5. The supplierof Panel B has agreed with each of the Buyers B6-B9 to a survey price(e.g., $20/completed survey) for each of Surveys S6-S9. Each price maybe determined by one or more intrinsic value indicators of an onlinesurvey, such as incidence, conversion, and/or length of interview.

FIG. 2 illustrates a representative routing process within aconventional router platform. With reference to FIG. 2, Respondent R1 ofPanel A may be sent to the router platform for Survey S3. If RespondentR1 fails to qualify for Survey S3, the router platform will sendRespondent R1 to another online survey on the router platform. Forexample, the router platform may send Respondent R1 to Survey S8 despitethe fact that the supplier of Panel A and Buyer B8 have not negotiated aprice per completed survey for Survey S8. In such situations, RespondentR1 is considered a “routed respondent” in Survey S8.

Traditionally, a router platform uses a standard rate or price percompleted survey for routed respondents from each panel. For example,the supplier of Panel A could have set a price of $10 per online surveycompleted by one of its respondents who were routed to an out-of-networksurvey (i.e., a survey for which the supplier has not negotiated asurvey price with the buyer) on the router platform. Also, each buyertraditionally sets a budget or cap for each online survey completed by arespondent routed to its survey from an out-of-network panel. Forexample, Buyer B8 could have set a budget of $17 per online surveycompleted by a respondent other than Panel B respondents. A panel'srouted pricing is usually lower than its pricing for in-network surveys(i.e., surveys for which the supplier has negotiated a survey price withthe buyer) since the respondent is yielding revenue when otherwise nonewould be due since the respondent was terminated from the in-networksurvey. Suppliers and buyers typically will not have access to eachother's pricing for routed respondents.

In the foregoing example, Panel A would be paid $10 (its routed priceper complete) for Respondent R1's completed Survey S8. The fact thatBuyer B8 set a budget of $17 per routed complete for Survey S8 suggeststhat Panel A was underpaid for Respondent R1's completed Survey S8.While the supplier of Panel A could set a higher price for each routedcomplete, such as $25, this higher rate may prevent Panel A'srespondents from being routed to other surveys on the router platformsince the buyers have the ability of setting caps or budgets for routedcompletes of its surveys. For example, if Panel A's routed price percomplete was $25, Respondent R1 would not have been routed to Survey S8because Panel A's price per routed complete would be higher than BuyerB8's budget of $17 per routed complete for Survey S8. Without access tothe intrinsic value indicators of the out-of-network surveys, thesupplier has little to no data on which to base its bid price for thecompletion of out-of-network surveys. As a result, suppliers inevitablylose revenue due to its routed pricing not being based on the value ofthe surveys to which its respondents are routed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention disclosed herein is directed to an online survey platformand process for correlating the bid price offered by a supplier for thecompletion of an out-of-network survey hosted on the survey platform toone or more intrinsic value indicators of the survey. If the supplier'sbid price is less than or equal to the survey budget price set by thebuyer, then the routing platform of the present invention will route thesupplier's respondent(s) to the survey.

In one embodiment of the process of the present invention, a routerplatform will populate a list of matched online surveys from the pool ofsurveys hosted on the platform. The router platform then will route therespondent to an online survey selected from the populated list. Next,the router platform will present screening questions (demographic and/ortargeted questions) to the respondent to determine if he/she qualifiesfor the survey. If the respondent qualifies, the routing platform willutilize the supplier's routed pricing grid data and one or moreintrinsic value indicators (e.g., LOI, survey conversion value, surveyincidence value, etc) of the survey to calculate the supplier's bidprice. If the supplier's bid price for the particular survey is lessthan the buyer's budget, the router platform will send the respondent tothe substantive portion of the survey.

The above summary is not intended to describe each illustratedembodiment or every possible implementation. These and other features,aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become betterunderstood with regard to the following description, appended claims,and accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer toidentical or functionally similar elements throughout the separateviews, and which, together with the detailed description below, areincorporated in and form part of the specification, serve to illustratefurther various embodiments and to explain various principles andadvantages in accordance with the present invention:

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of an exemplary router platform.

FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of the routing functionalityexhibited by the router platform of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of an embodiment of a routed pricinggrid exemplifying principles of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of an alternative embodiment of arouted pricing grid exemplifying principles of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating the environment in which anembodiment of the router platform of the present invention operates.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram depicting an embodiment of the router platformof the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram depicting an exemplary computer architectureof an embodiment of the router platform of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram depicting an exemplary process of the presentinvention for dynamically matching a supplier's bid price offered to theintrinsic value of a survey and then routing the supplier'srespondent(s) to the survey if the supplier's bid price is less than orequal to the survey budget set by the buyer.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram depicting an exemplary sub-routine forconducting the price matching method of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein;however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments aremerely exemplary of the invention, which can be embodied in variousforms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosedherein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis forthe claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in theart to variously employ the present invention in virtually anyappropriately detailed environment. Alternate embodiments may be devisedwithout departing from the spirit or the scope of the invention.Further, the terms and phrases used herein are not intended to belimiting; but rather, to provide an understandable description of theinvention. While the specification concludes with claims defining thefeatures of the invention that are regarded as novel, it is believedthat the invention will be better understood from a consideration of thefollowing description in conjunction with the drawing figures, in whichlike reference numerals are carried forward.

As used herein, the terms “a” or “an” are defined as one or more thanone. The term “plurality,” as used herein, is defined as two or morethan two. The term “another,” as used herein, is defined as at least asecond or more. The terms “comprises,” “comprising,” or any othervariation thereof are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, suchthat a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list ofelements does not include only those elements, but may include otherelements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method,article, or apparatus. An element proceeded by “comprises . . . a” doesnot, without more constraints, preclude the existence of additionalidentical elements in the process, method, article, or apparatus thatcomprises the element. The terms “including,” “having,” or “featuring,”as used herein, are defined as comprising (i.e., open language).

The terms “router platform,” “routing platform,” and “survey platform”may be used interchangeably herein and refer to a storage device,software program, processor, and any other components necessary to hostone or more surveys accessible by respondents via a communicationsnetwork such as a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), awireless network, an intranet, the internet, or other communicationsmeans.

The present invention is a router platform and process for dynamicallymatching the bid price offered by a supplier for the completion of asurvey hosted on the survey platform to the intrinsic value of thesurvey. If the supplier's bid price is less than or equal to the surveybudget price set by the buyer, then the routing platform of the presentinvention will route the supplier's respondent(s) to the survey.

A router platform embodying principles of the present invention featuresa plurality of online surveys hosted on the platform. In certainembodiments, the entire survey (i.e., both screening questions andsubstantive survey questions) can be hosted on the router platform. Inother embodiments, only the screening questions (both demographic andtargeted questions) will be hosted on the router platform. If therespondent qualifies for the survey, he/she may be directed to a thirdparty website (e.g., a website managed by the buyer or the surveycreator/administrator) which is hosting the substantive questions of thesurvey.

Referring to FIG. 3, an embodiment of a routed pricing grid is depicted.The routed pricing grid 10 may provide a price charged by a supplier'spanel for surveys completed by its respondents who are routed to anotherbuyer's surveys (“routed completes”). The routed pricing grid mayprovide differing prices for routed completes based upon an intrinsicvalue indicator of a survey. The routed pricing grid may providediffering prices for routed completes based upon the conversionpercentage for a survey. Alternatively, the routed pricing grid mayprovide differing prices for routed completes based upon the incidencepercentage or LOI for a survey.

In one embodiment, the routed pricing grid may provide differing pricesfor routed completes based upon two or more intrinsic value indicatorsof a survey. For example, grid 10 in FIG. 3 includes prices for routedcompletes based upon a survey's LOI and conversion percentage. Grid 10may include a 25-point grid, which may allow a supplier to set a pricefor routed completes on surveys whose LOI values fall within five rangesand whose conversion percentages fall within five ranges. The LOI rangesmay be 10 minutes or less, 11-20 minutes, 21-30 minutes, 31-40 minutes,and 41 minutes or more. The conversion percentage ranges may be 10% orless, 11-20%, 21-30%, 31-40%, and 41% or more. Grid 10 may include aprice for a routed complete of a survey falling into any combination ofLOI range and conversion percentage range. Grid 10 may include anynumber of ranges for LOI and conversion percentage. The highest priceper routed complete may be for a survey whose LOI value falls within thehighest LOI range of grid 10 and whose conversion percentage fallswithin the lowest conversion percentage range of grid 10. For example,Grid 10 may include a price of $7.5 per routed complete for a surveywith an LOI value of 41 minutes or more and a conversion percentage of10% or less. Conversely, the lowest price per routed complete may be fora survey whose LOI value falls within the lowest LOI range of the grid10 and whose conversion percentage falls within the highest conversionpercentage range of grid 10. For example, Grid 10 may include a price of$2.50 per routed complete for a survey with an LOI value of 10 minutesor less and a conversion percentage of 41% or less.

Alternatively, grid 20 shown in FIG. 4 includes prices for routedcompletes based upon a survey's LOI and incidence percentage. Grid 20may provide a price for a routed complete of a survey falling into anycombination of LOI range and incidence percentage range. Grid 20 mayinclude any number of ranges for LOI and incidence percentage. Thehighest price per routed complete may be for a survey whose LOI valuefalls within the highest LOI range of grid 20 and whose incidencepercentage falls within the lowest incidence percentage range of grid20. For example, Grid 20 may include a price of $7.5 per routed completefor a survey with an LOI value of 41 minutes or more and an incidencepercentage of 10% or less. Conversely, the lowest price per routedcomplete may be for a survey whose LOI value falls within the lowest LOIrange of the grid 20 and whose incidence percentage falls within thehighest incidence percentage range of grid 20. For example, Grid 20 mayinclude a price of $2.50 per routed complete for a survey with an LOIvalue of 10 minutes or less and an incidence percentage of 41% or less.

In another alternative embodiment, the routed pricing grid may provideprices for routed completes based upon LOI, incidence percentage, andconversion percentage.

Suppliers of survey panels may set a routed pricing grid on the routerplatform. Buyers may also set a budget for routed completes of each oftheir surveys. The LOI value, conversion percentage, and/or incidencepercentage for each survey may initially be an estimated value providedby the buyer or the survey creator/administrator.

The router platform may route a respondent who is terminated from afirst online survey on the router platform to a second online survey onthe router platform. In selecting the second online survey from theplurality of online surveys, the router platform may determine which ofthe plurality of online surveys has a budget set by its survey buyerthat is greater than the survey's price on the panel's routed pricinggrid based upon the initial estimated values of the LOI value,conversion percentage, and/or incidence percentage of the survey. Therouter platform may perform this comparison for each of the plurality ofonline surveys on the router platform (other than the first onlinesurvey) to obtain a group of price-matched online surveys, and thenselect the second online survey from the group of price-matched onlinesurveys randomly or on some predefined basis (e.g., by selecting theonline survey having the highest price on the respondent's routedpricing grid). Alternatively, the router platform may perform thiscomparison for a single online survey on the router platform at a time,and may route the respondent to the first online survey for which thebuyer's predefined budget is greater than the online survey's price onthe respondent's panel's routed pricing grid.

The price matching method may further include measuring and recordingthe criteria necessary to calculate each of the value indicators foreach online survey as each respondent takes and completes each onlinesurvey on the router platform. The criteria may include a start time, anend time, a count of respondents who begin an online survey, a count ofrespondents who are terminated in the demographic questions of theonline survey, a count of respondents who are terminated in the targetedquestions of the online survey, a count of respondents who beginsubstantive questions of an online survey, a count of respondents whoare terminated in the substantive questions of the online survey, and/ora count of respondents who complete the online survey. From thisinformation, the value indicators for each online survey may be updatedfrom the initial estimated values to actual measured values asrespondents take and complete the online survey.

For example, from Respondent 1's start time and end time on Survey 1,the router platform can calculate the LOI for Respondent 1 on Survey 1.The router platform may also calculate the LOI for Respondents 2-200 onSurvey 1. The actual measured LOI value for survey 1 may be a median ormean value of Respondents 1-200's LOI values on Survey 1. The routerplatform may recalculate the median LOI value for Survey 1 each time arespondent completes Survey 1. In this example, when Respondent 201completes Survey 1, the router platform will calculate Respondent 201'sLOI for Survey 1 from his/her start time and end time. The routerplatform may then update the median LOI value for Survey 1 withRespondent 201's LOI for Survey 1.

The router platform may perform the same calculations to obtain realtime median values for the conversion percentage and incidencepercentage for each online survey. The router platform may use the countof respondents who begin the substantive questions for an online surveyand the count of respondents who complete the online survey to calculatethe conversion percentage. Alternatively, the router platform may usethe count of respondents who are terminated in the substantive questionsof the online survey and the count of respondents who complete theonline survey to calculate the conversion percentage. For example, if120 respondents began the substantive questions for Survey 1 and 30respondents completed Survey 1, the router platform will calculate theconversion percentage for Survey 1 of 25% (30/120). If anotherrespondent then begins the substantive questions for Survey 1, but doesnot complete Survey 1, the router platform will automatically update theconversion percentage for Survey 1 to 24.8% (30/121).

The router platform may use the count of respondents who completed thedemographic questions of an online survey and the count of respondentswho completed the online survey to calculate the incidence percentagefor the online survey. Alternatively, the router platform may use thecount of respondents who begin the online survey, the count ofrespondents who are terminated in the demographic questions of theonline survey, and the count of respondents who complete the onlinesurvey to calculate the incidence percentage for the online survey. Forexample, if 300 respondents completed the demographic questions ofSurvey 2 without being terminated and 45 respondents completed Survey 2,the router platform will calculate the incidence percentage for Survey 2of 15% (45/300). If another respondent then completes the demographicquestions of Survey 2 and completes Survey 2, the router platform willautomatically update the incidence percentage for Survey 2 of 15.3%(46/301).

The router platform may use the real time measurements of the intrinsicvalue indicators to price match a respondent who is terminated from afirst online survey on the router platform with a second online survey.The router platform may simply use the intrinsic value indicatormeasurements instead of the initial estimated intrinsic value indicatorin the example provided above by using the price on the panel's routedpricing grid for the intrinsic value indicator measurement of eachonline survey.

For each respondent terminated from an online survey on the routerplatform, the router platform may review the budgets of all onlinesurveys to which the respondent may be routed. The price for each ofthese potential online surveys may be determined from the routed pricinggrid for the respondent's panel, such as grid 10 in FIG. 3, using thereal time value for conversion and LOI for each of the potential onlinesurveys. Alternatively, the real time value for incidence and LOI foreach of the potential online surveys may be used to determine the pricefor each of these online surveys from the routed pricing grid for therespondent's panel, such as grid 20 in FIG. 4. In either case, if theprice indicated in the routed pricing grid for a given survey is lessthan the budget set by the survey buyer for routed completes for thesurvey, this survey is an valid routing destination for the respondent.

The router platform may also allow a supplier to set a default routedpricing grid for its panel of respondents and one or more exceptionrouted pricing grids for certain routing circumstances. For example, asupplier may set an exception routed pricing grid for its respondents ina particular market, such as geographic locations (e.g., India).Alternatively, a supplier may set an exception routed pricing grid foronline surveys of particular survey buyers with whom the supplier mayhave predefined pricing agreements. For example, Surveys 20, 21, and 22may be associated with Panel Z and Buyer 7. Panel X may have apredefined pricing agreement with Buyer 7 in which Panel X agrees togive a discounted price to Buyer 7 for Panel X's respondents who arerouted to Buyer 7's surveys, including Surveys 20, 21, and 22. In thisexample, Panel X could set both a default routed pricing grid for itsrespondents who are routed to all online surveys other than thoseassociated with Panel X and an exception routed pricing grid for itsrespondents who are routed to all online surveys associated with Buyer 7(i.e., for Surveys 20, 21, and 22).

In certain embodiments, suppliers can provide routed pricing values ondemand through an API. Rather than set a routed pricing grid on therouter platform, each supplier will have the flexibility to providepricing values based on custom conversion/incidence percentages and LOIranges as defined in their native systems. Each supplier will be able toreceive such value indicators as conversion percentage, incidencepercentage, LOI, buyer, and country/market from the router platform andreturn routed pricing values on an automated basis through the API.

Referring now to FIG. 5, an exemplary environment in which the routerplatform of the present invention operates is illustrated. One or moreclients (respondents, suppliers, or buyers) may access the routerplatform 800 using their user devices 701, 702, 703 via a communicationsnetwork 710. In various embodiments, user devices 701, 702, 703 includea desktop computer, a laptop computer, or a mobile device such as atablet or smartphone. In various embodiments, the communications network710 includes a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), awireless network, an intranet, the internet, and so forth.

FIGS. 6 and 7 depict exemplary embodiments of a router platform 800capable of hosting a plurality of online surveys. Referring to FIG. 6,the router platform 800 may include a web server 810 and a databaseserver 820. The web server 810 may comprise web page(s) 811 and a serverengine 812. The database server 820 may comprise a respondent repository821 and a survey repository 822. The survey repository 822 can store:the supplier's routed pricing grid data (which can be inputted by thesupplier via the web server 810); the buyer's budget data for eachonline survey, including the initial value of one or more intrinsicvalue indicators for each online survey associated with the buyer (whichcan be inputted by the buyer via the web server 810); and datapertaining to one or more intrinsic value indicator properties as eachsurvey respondent takes each online survey on the router platform 800.

The web server 810 can communicate with the database server 820 in orderto provide the functionality of the router platform 800 describedherein. For example, in operation, the web server 810 may receive HTTPrequests from a particular respondent's user device 701 to access a webpage(s) 811 containing a list of available surveys stored on thedatabase server 820. The web server 810 will communicate with therespondent repository 821 to access the respondent's device informationand will communicate with the survey repository 822 to compile a list ofeligible surveys for the respondent. The server engine 812 will thenprovide the web page(s) 811 containing the listing of eligible surveysto the respondent's user device 701. If the respondent does not qualifyfor the first online survey, the web server 810 will communicate withthe survey repository 822 to access the supplier's routed pricing griddata, the buyer's budget data for each online survey, and the recordedintrinsic value indicator data for each online survey. In order tocreate a new price-matched group of online surveys for the respondent,the logic in web server 810 will: 1) calculate the intrinsic valueindicator for each survey in the survey pool; 2) determine thesupplier's bid price for each survey in the survey pool by comparing theintrinsic value indicators for the online survey to the supplier'srouted pricing grid; and 3) compare the supplier's bid price for routedcompletes for the online survey with the buyer's budget for the onlinesurvey. Then the web server 810 will provide the web page(s) containingan updated listing of eligible surveys to the respondent's user device701.

Referring now to FIG. 7, another exemplary embodiment of the routerplatform 800 is depicted. One or more elastic load balancers 830, 831,832, 833 are utilized to balance the traffic across the web and databaseservers 810, 820. The router platform 800 may further compriseadditional components and applications, such as: an automation server812; one or more bastion hosts 813; a network address translation (NAT)application 814; a non-relational database 823 (e.g., MongoDB); andvarious enterprise search engines 824 (e.g., SOLR, EMS, AMQ). Althoughthe router platform 800 is described as being comprised of thesecomponents in this particular embodiment, fewer or more hardware andsoftware components may comprise the router platform 800 and still fallwithin the scope of the system of the present invention. For example,the router platform of the present invention can be adapted toaccomplish any number of the following functions: allow survey creatorsto create online surveys; store and host online surveys; present onlinesurveys to respondents; route respondents who are terminated from afirst online survey to other online surveys; present survey results andother output data related to the online surveys to survey creatorsand/or survey administrators; allow a survey administrator to manage thedatabase of online surveys; allow a supplier to set one or more routedpricing grids; allow a buyer to set a budget for each online survey;allow each buyer to set an initial value of one or more intrinsic valueindicators for each online survey associated with the buyer; create aprice-matched group of online surveys; determine a price for surveyscompleted by routed respondents (i.e., routed completes) for an onlinesurvey from a routed pricing grid using intrinsic value indicators forthe online survey; compare the price for routed completes for an onlinesurvey from a routed pricing grid with a budget for the online survey;measure and record one or more properties as each survey respondenttakes each online survey on the router platform; calculate the intrinsicvalue indicator from the recorded properties; and update the intrinsicvalue indicator calculations in real time. One skilled in the art willrecognize that the number of required hardware and software componentsmay be dependent on the features provided by the router platform 800.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram depicting an exemplary process of the presentinvention for dynamically matching a supplier's bid price offered to theintrinsic value of a survey and then routing the supplier'srespondent(s) to the survey if the supplier's bid price is less than orequal to the survey budget set by the buyer. In the illustrated process,a respondent from a panel has been terminated from a first online surveyon the router platform 800 and is in the process of being routed to anout-of-network survey on the router platform 800. In step 910, therouter platform 800 will populate a list of matched online surveys fromthe survey pool, filtering out unmatched online surveys for which therespondent fails to qualify for due to either the respondent'spreviously recorded responses to screening questions or due to thesupplier's routed pricing being wholly incompatible with the buyer'sbudget for the particular survey. In step 920, the router platform 800will select an online survey from the populated list. In step 930, therouter platform will route the respondent to the selected survey toconduct the price matching method of the present invention. If therespondent is matched with a particular survey and completes the survey,the respondent's session on the routing platform will be completed. Ifthe respondent is matched to a survey but fails to complete it, therouting platform 800 will inquire whether the respondent wishes toattempt to qualify for another survey. If so, the router platform 800will again select an online survey from the populated list (step 920)and reinitiate the price matching method described herein.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram depicting an exemplary sub-routine forconducting the price matching method of the present invention. In step931, the router platform 800 will route the respondent to an onlinesurvey from the populated list of matched online surveys. The routerplatform 800 will then present screening questions (demographic and/ortargeted questions) to the respondent to determine if he/she qualifiesfor the survey (step 932). If the respondent qualifies, the routingplatform will utilize the survey LOI (step 933), the survey conversionvalue (step 934), and/or the survey incidence value (step 935) tocalculate the supplier's bid price using the supplier's routed pricinggrid data (step 936). The router platform will then compare thesupplier's bid price to the budget set by the buyer (step 937). If thebid price is less than the buyer's budget, the respondent will be sentto the substantive portion of the survey (step 938). In certainembodiments, the entire survey (i.e., both screening questions andsubstantive survey questions) will be hosted on the routing platform800. In other embodiments, only the screening questions will be hostedon the routing platform 800. If the respondent qualifies for the survey,he/she will be directed to a third party website (e.g., a websitemanaged by the survey creator and/or administrator) which is hosting thesubstantive questions of the survey.

The embodiments shown in the drawings and described above are exemplaryof numerous embodiments that may be made within the scope of theappended claims. It is contemplated that numerous other configurationsmay be used, and the material of each component may be selected fromnumerous materials other than those specifically disclosed. In short, itis the applicant's intention that the scope of the patent issuingherefrom will be limited only by the scope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of dynamic price matching comprising thesteps of: (a) providing a router platform hosting a plurality of onlinesurveys for a plurality of panels and a plurality of buyers, whereineach online survey is associated with a panel and a buyer; (b) therouter platform receiving from each panel a routed pricing grid, whereinthe routed pricing grid includes prices for routed completes by each ofa plurality of survey respondents associated with the panel, and whereinthe prices for routed completes are based upon two or more intrinsicvalue indicators of online surveys, wherein the intrinsic valueindicators are selected from a group consisting of a conversionpercentage, an incidence percentage, and a length of interview; (c) therouter platform receiving from each buyer a budget for each onlinesurvey associated with the buyer; (d) the router platform receiving fromeach buyer an initial value of each intrinsic value indicator for eachonline survey associated with the buyer; (e) creating a price-matchedgroup of online surveys on the router platform for a first surveyrespondent who has been terminated from a first online survey on therouter platform, wherein the first survey respondent is associated witha first panel, comprising the steps of: (i) determining the price forrouted completes for each online survey from the first panel's routedpricing grid using the initial value of the intrinsic value indicatorsfor each online survey; (ii) comparing each price to the budget of eachonline survey; (iii) including in the price-matched group each onlinesurvey with a budget that is greater than its price for routed completesfrom the first panel's routed pricing grid; and (f) routing the firstsurvey respondent to a second online survey on the router platform,wherein the second online survey is selected from the price-matchedgroup of online surveys on the router platform.
 2. The method of claim1, wherein the intrinsic value indicators comprise conversion percentageand length of interview.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the intrinsicvalue indicators comprise incidence percentage and length of interview.4. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of: (g) measuringand recording one or more properties as each survey respondent takeseach online survey; and (h) calculating the intrinsic value indicatorfrom the recorded one or more properties and updating the intrinsicvalue indicator calculation periodically.
 5. The method of claim 4further comprising the steps of: (i) creating an updated price-matchedgroup of online surveys on the router platform for a second surveyrespondent who has been terminated from one of the plurality of onlinesurveys on the router platform, wherein the second survey respondent isassociated with one of the plurality of panels, comprising the steps of:(i) determining the price for the routed completes for each onlinesurvey from the routed pricing grid for the panel associated with thesecond survey respondent using the current intrinsic value indicatorcalculations for each online survey; (ii) comparing each price to thebudget of each online survey; (iii) including in the updatedprice-matched group each online survey with a budget that is greaterthan its price for routed completes from the routed pricing grid for thepanel associated with the second survey respondent; and (j) routing thesecond survey respondent to a third online survey on the routerplatform, wherein the third online survey is selected from the updatedprice-matched group of online surveys on the router platform other thanthe survey from which second survey respondent was terminated.
 6. Themethod of claim 4, wherein in step (h), the intrinsic value indicatorcalculation is updated each time the one or more properties is measuredand recorded.
 7. The method of claim 4, wherein in step (h), theintrinsic value indicator calculation is updated at predefined timeintervals.